


Epiphany

by Rhianne



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Episode: s05e13 Proving Ground, Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 19:32:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhianne/pseuds/Rhianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack comes to a startling and unwelcome realisation after Daniel’s actions in season five's Proving Ground.</p><p>This is set just before and during Proving Ground, so major spoilers for that episode.  Minor spoilers for Children of the Gods, Beast of Burden, The Other Side and vague references to some other Season 4/5 episodes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epiphany

Sinking into the cold metal chair, Jack dumped the bowl on the table, staring down at the Fruit Loops slowly going soggy in the milk.

Today was a bad day, and since it was only 09:15, Jack knew it was only going to get worse. Nothing good could come of any day that you were sick of before it had even started. 

Sighing, he picked up the spoon and began to eat, but not even that was able to lift his mood.

Fruit Loops just hadn’t been the same since that damn time loop. Jack wasn’t alone in the commissary, but he studiously ignored the other people in the room. He wasn’t exactly going to be good company, sitting there brooding over his cereal. Hammond should have known better really, and Jack wasn’t surprised that he was miserable.

Training potential SGC recruits wasn’t exactly high on his ‘things to do with his time off’ list. In fact, it right up there alongside visiting Makepeace’s little band in jail as something he really didn’t feel any need to do.

Unfortunately, when the General said jump, Jack asked how high. At least these days he did. For some reason Hammond hadn’t taken kindly to SG-1 giving their weapons to Chaka and the other Unas, and Jack was still walking on eggshells. So when the General had ‘requested’ Jack’s assistance in training the latest round of recruits, Jack had swallowed his usual protests, and meekly agreed.

A familiar voice stood out from the noise around him, and Jack glanced up from his examination of the table.

Daniel.

The archaeologist was making his way down the serving line, talking animatedly with one of SG-7, whose name Jack couldn’t remember.

What was Daniel doing on base? Their little exercise with the recruits wasn’t due to start till almost lunchtime – Jack hadn’t even realised Daniel was in the mountain.

For that matter, since when had Daniel become so friendly with SG-7? Of course, that was a question Jack could answer all too easily. Lately it seemed like Daniel spent more time on loan to other teams than he did with any of SG-1. In the early days the four of them had been nearly inseparable, but now – Jack could probably count the number of times SG-1 had been fully present on a mission over the last year on his fingers and toes, and still have some left over. If Daniel wasn’t off on a dig somewhere, or playing meet and greet with another SG team who weren’t up to the job on their own, then Teal’c was visiting Ry’ac, or helping Bra’tac train more Jaffa for the resistance movement. Carter was no better; these days she seemed to spend more time buried in a lab or giving lectures to the damn recruits than she did off-world.

No, that wasn’t strictly true. Over the past month or so things seemed to be settling back down, and SG-1 had at least been present and correct for most of the missions they were sent on, but it didn’t seem to have made much of a difference. The time the four of them had spent apart had changed things, somehow, and even though SG-1 as a team was back together, Jack, Carter, Daniel and Teal’c were not.

No, he couldn’t blame the job for everything. It had been months since any of SG-1 had socialised away from the base. Hell, he’d realised that back when Carter was abducted. The awful knowledge that she’d been missing for two days before they’d even noticed anything was wrong had eaten away at him for much longer than it took to get her back in one piece. There had been a time when two days without seeing any of them would have been almost unthinkable.

And as for work, Jack had never read so many damn reports in his life, and he was sick of it. Not even this training exercise was going to help, since he’d be playing the wounded soldier with a bunch of kids while the others were kept separated in another part of the mountain. Somewhere along the way, his kids had started to grow up, and sometimes Jack felt distinctly left out. Being asked, effectively, to help train his replacements didn’t help.

More than anything else Jack felt old, and he didn’t like the feeling.

He watched thoughtfully as Daniel finished in the food line and walked to a seat on the other side of the room. Jack didn’t think Daniel had seen him, because even if they barely saw each other anymore, Jack still knew he’d have done something to acknowledge him, even if it was just a wave before he sat somewhere else.

Frowning, Jack picked up his spoon again, trying to find some enthusiasm for the food and turn away from his brooding thoughts.

 

*****

 

“Do you have any idea how the Goa’uld escaped from the SGC?”

“None whatsoever.”

Jack glanced back briefly at Elliot as he spoke before turning his attention back to the wire fence in front of him.

“What about weapons, do we know what we might be facing in there?”

“Not a clue, anything else?” 

Jack could hear the impatience in his voice as he answered yet another question, but had no intention of softening his voice or his attitude. Everything Elliot was asking had already been answered at the briefing they’d had before leaving the SGC, and Jack wasn’t used to having to repeat orders. Well, not to military personnel, anyway. If Elliot was going to work well within the SGC, then he needed to be capable of adapting to situations without the benefit of a written report. That was true in any military installation, but particularly when you went off world. On other planets the basic rules of communication and behaviour were no longer valid, and it had taken even Jack by surprise just how much more difficult that made his job.

Crouching down with the others, Jack forced himself to smother a sigh as Elliot shifted nervously beside him and spoke again.

“Sorry sir, I was just…trying to assess the situation.”

“Two of my team members were chasing a Goa’uld. They’ve been missing four hours. That’s the situation.”

Yep, Daniel and Carter missing again, just like they had been when they were investigating Martin. Swell, even these training scenarios were taunting him, reminding him of the times that SG-1 had been separated in more than just spirit.

Jack could see that Elliot was nervous, that he was mentally running through what might happen in the next few minutes, what kind of situation he might be walking in to. He was trying to outthink his instructors, outthink Jack himself, to work out what they might have planned and prepare himself accordingly. Jack had to admit that level of awareness was admirable in its own way, and the behaviour as natural as anticipating the emergency stop in a driving test, but unfortunately just as pointless.

The saying that you were trained not to think in the military might be a cliché, but it was also true. Jack knew all too well that if you thought, if you stopped in the middle of a battle to analyse, you got distracted and then you got killed. It had to be instinctive. Natural. It was the main reason why Daniel would never make it as a military officer – he thought too much. But then, if he didn’t think, he wouldn’t be Daniel.

“This building was the last known location of Major Carter and Daniel Jackson.”

Now look who was getting distracted. Jack swallowed down his irritation before briskly beginning to bark out orders. 

“Right Elliot, have your team secure the perimeter. Keep your channel open. Teal’c, you’re with me.”

“Sir? We’re not going in with you?”

Jeez, had the kid ever followed an order without questioning it? What were his superiors at the Academy thinking when they suggested him as a candidate for the SGC? 

“Have your team secure the perimeter. Do you understand the order?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then do it, Lieutenant!”

Without another word Jack moved away from the recruits with Teal’c close behind him. He could still hear Elliot dishing out orders of his own as he ducked into the relative darkness of the warehouse itself.

Yep, an abandoned warehouse in the middle of a deserted army base – clichés were alive and well in Colorado Springs. For the benefit of the recruits Jack kept up his façade of military efficiency as he moved carefully into the building, but the second he was out of Elliot’s sight he straightened up and jogged quickly towards the main room where they’d arranged to meet Carter and Daniel.

 

****

 

“That’s true, but you’re wrong about one thing. She’s the Tok’ra, I’m the Goa’uld.”

Jack blinked, not sure if he could believe what he was seeing. Carter had barely stilled on the ground next to him when Daniel began speaking, his voice suddenly taking on the deep resonance of the Goa’uld. Jack watched as Daniel revealed his true role in the charade without any apparent care for the fact that they were all going to shoot him before he could finish his sentence. He groaned inwardly, holding his breath to see which of the recruits would fire first.

But it didn’t happen.

Instead, Jack watched in stunned amazement as Daniel calmly raised his gun and took careful aim, shooting each man in turn until the so-called SGC team were all lying stunned on the floor.

Jack knew how they felt. Even though he knew he should be reacting, Jack couldn’t tear his eyes away from his friend, staring at the calm, focused look on Daniel’s face as Daniel brought the gun back up to his lips before blowing out imaginary smoke in celebration of his victory.

Jack wasn’t sure what had surprised him the most. Was it the fact that Daniel, a civilian Doctor of Archaeology who had no more military training than a few basic courses in his early months with the SGC, had just single-handedly taken out an entire unit of the military’s finest recruits? 

No. 

On reflection Jack realised that he was more stunned by the calmness with which Daniel had acted. He’d watched Daniel in battle before, particularly when SG-1 had first been formed, and had seen how uncomfortable Daniel was with firearms. In truth, Daniel seemed out of place in any situation where he couldn’t use reason and logic to prevail. Hell, the man used to wince every time he was forced to squeeze the trigger.

When had that changed?

When had Daniel suddenly turned into someone capable, even when play acting, of such a calm, planned and perfectly executed attack on a highly trained enemy who outnumbered him four to one?

Suddenly, Jack wasn’t sure he knew Daniel at all.

For a long second the room was still, and then Daniel shrugged, and that slight movement seemed to break the spell his actions had cast over the group.

Sharply reminding himself that they were in a mission scenario, and now was not the time to stand (or in his case lie) around thinking about his friend, Jack took refuge in his job as a military Colonel, propelled himself swiftly to his feet and began shouting.

“Okay!” he began, focusing his frustration on the recruits who were painfully climbing back to their feet and standing in what they probably fondly thought was a straight line. “So, we’re all dead, and there’s an armed Goa’uld on the loose.” The recruits shifted uneasily as they met his gaze. “I got a problem with that. Anybody else got a problem with that?” Jack calmed slightly when he saw the nervous tension radiating from Elliot and his team. He might not have noticed that his best friend had changed before his eyes, but at least he could still inspire fear in his subordinates. “Think it over. Report to the ready line in 20 minutes. Dismissed.”

Far too slowly for Jack’s liking the recruits began to disperse, but Jack didn’t miss the various glances across to Daniel. Elliot seemed pissed, and perhaps slightly resentful that he’d lost in such an embarrassing way. Jack couldn’t really blame him - he was their team leader, was supposed to be that little bit faster and better than the rest, and yet he’d been the last to fall, had more time than anyone else to return fire. Instead he’d just stared at Daniel and waited his turn like a duck in a shooting gallery. Jack chose to ignore the little voice in his head hat pointed out he’d probably have done exactly the same thing, if his own shock at Daniel’s actions was anything to go by.

The look Lieutenant Satterfield threw at Daniel was admiring, and frankly slightly predatory, to Jack’s surprise. Though quite why he was so surprised Jack had no idea. Daniel seemed to attract women like moths to a flame, and had racked up dozens of admirers amongst the SGC nursing staff, not to mention his numerous off world conquests over the years. Jack wasn’t sure there were many Daniel would care to remember, though. Since meeting Daniel, Jack had become used to threat assessing any women they met along with the men to an extent that he never did before joining the SGC.

‘Doctor Jackson strikes again,’ Jack thought, before deciding that a quiet word with the young recruit about the perils of dating within the Air force would probably be wise. Not that Daniel was actually in the Air Force, but dating within the SGC was just about the same thing. Jack couldn’t scold too much – though they’d never dated, that whole mess with Carter had played a fairly major role in the way SG-1 had begun to fall apart. It just proved how important the fraternisation regs really were. Essentially nothing had changed, he’d acknowledged his feelings for Carter years before Anise and that damn machine, but there was an awkwardness in his interactions with Carter now it was out in the open that hadn’t been there before.

“Move!” he yelled, and the team of recruits scurried away to lick their wounds in relative privacy. Turning back to face his team mates, Jack was just in time to catch Daniel’s frown.

“Aren’t you being a little hard on them?” he asked, and Jack flinched inwardly at the sound of Daniel speaking through the voice of a Goa’uld.

“Will you turn that thing off?” he snapped, his thoughts making his voice harsher than he’d expected.

“Sorry,” Daniel said sheepishly, reaching for the little box of tricks that was altering his voice.

“And no, I wasn’t being too hard on them.” With that Jack walked away, seeking his own solitude in order to get his focus back on the day of training that was to follow.

 

*****

 

On a mission or while on surveillance Jack could be patient for hours, his focus solely on his objectives, his surroundings and any possible dangers to him and his team. But this wasn’t a mission, and without the adrenaline rush to keep him focussed, twenty minutes was more than enough time for Jack’s thoughts to return to Daniel’s actions in the warehouse.

It was brutally obvious that Daniel’s military skills had developed way beyond those of the geeky young archaeologist who had barely known one end of a gun from the other when they’d first met. But Jack worked with the man every day, they’d stood side by side in almost every battle SG-1 had fought – how could he have missed it?

Jack’s job, his sole role on SG-1 was to protect his team, and by extension the rest of the SGC and Earth. In order to do that Jack had to be constantly on watch, observing the races that they came into contact with, analysing and assessing any possible threat. But that also meant being hyper aware of his team – of their behaviour, and being able to predict how they would react in any given situation. He had to constantly stay one step ahead of them, knowing what they were going to do almost before they did.

Carter, for example, could be relied on to follow orders with an almost blind faith, the need to obey the chain of command having been drilled into her over years of military service. She might get a little caught up in physics, in the new scientific discoveries they made on missions, but first and foremost she was a soldier. On the very few occasions that she openly disagreed with his orders, Jack still knew that she could be relied to do as he said, albeit reluctantly. Offhand, Jack couldn’t think of any time that she’d openly disobeyed him.

As for Teal’c, well…Teal’c was Teal’c. Jack might not have the slightest idea how his mind worked or what he was thinking, but over the years he’d become able to sense the Jaffa’s moods, and could always tell when the big guy was disturbed about something. Out of the whole team, Teal’c was the most like Jack, and despite not being human was the easiest for Jack to relate to. Daniel and Carter were both scientists, which automatically gave them an avenue of interest that Jack just couldn’t relate to, no matter how hard he tried. Like Jack himself, Teal’c was military through and through - a warrior - and that meant Jack could understand his motivations and reactions almost as easily as he understood his own.

Which just left Daniel.

Daniel was the enigma, the one Jack couldn’t anticipate quite as easily as the others, which made it surprising that they’d formed such a firm friendship so quickly. Of course, going through that first mission on Abydos was bound to push them closer together. Jack was hardly likely to turn his nose up at someone who had, quite literally, died for him.

Jack could still remember his initial impression on seeing the archaeologist for the first time. Daniel Jackson had been a geek, plain and simple. A socially inept geek who had no business anywhere near a military installation, let alone forming part of an Air Force team going through the Stargate and into a combat situation. Daniel had surprised him, and together they’d beaten quite simply impossible odds to complete their mission and survive, even if they’d not both returned to Earth. He’d seen hidden depths in Daniel then, seen past the shy, uncertain scientist to the passionate man who lurked beneath.

In spite of all that, on returning to Abydos a year later, Jack’s immediate reaction on seeing Daniel again was to see the scientist, particularly when Daniel had started excitedly describing the Stargate cartouche that he’d found. Maybe that was why he’d gone to Skaara instead of Daniel in those first few moments back on Abydos. In those first few seconds, Jack hadn’t seen the man he remembered in Daniel, he’d only seen the scientist, and had turned to Skaara to give himself a little time to cover his confusion.

Regardless of the previous insight he’d had, Jack’s military training had still demanded that he assess Daniel, classify his strengths and weaknesses – and he couldn’t ignore the fact that Daniel *wasn’t* military trained, that he didn’t have the survival skills necessary to keep up with the rest of his team. While he had never opposed Daniel’s demand to join SG-1, he had worried at times that in battle, Daniel would be more of a hindrance than a help.

He couldn’t have been more wrong. In so many ways, Daniel had better survival skills than the rest of them put together. How many times had Jack written him off as dead, only for Daniel to pull through in the last second? Daniel’s skills were in words, in his ability to defuse a situation before it required weapons to fix, and Jack could instantly conjure up a dozen examples of how Daniel’s skills had saved all their lives, not to mention given them access to the allies who helped in their fight against the Goa’uld.

You’re drifting, Jack, he scolded himself. Fascinating though his thoughts may be, they weren’t helping him figure out why Daniel’s actions inside the warehouse had shaken him so badly. 

Why Grogen had shot Carter instead of Daniel was obvious from a military perspective – everything about that situation had been designed to make the Major look like the aggressor. Daniel was the one lying vulnerable on the ground, with Carter looming over him like some evil villain from a bad horror movie. It was Carter’s voice, not Daniel’s, that sounded like a Goa’uld, and even if she had claimed to be Tok’ra right from the start, Jack hadn’t expected the recruits to make the mental distinction. Hell, sometimes he had trouble remembering the difference. The scene had been designed to see how many of the recruits could look beyond what they thought they understood, something that was vital if they were ever going to become an effective member of Stargate Command.

Every single trainee had taken the situation at face value – assumed that Daniel was the meek, mild-mannered archaeologist they’d been introduced to before this whole thing started. They’d failed to see through the façade, hadn’t acknowledged the fact that Daniel was armed, and obviously very dangerous. Jack was disappointed in them for that.

And yet…

Jack sighed as he consciously acknowledged what to some degree he’d always known – he’d been doing the same thing for years.

Daniel wasn’t the same insecure scientist he’d first met five years before. Had stopped being that man the second he’d jumped in front of a weapon blast, the instant he’d turned the staff weapon on Ra himself.

Daniel had proved his military and strategic prowess in a hundred different ways since joining SG-1. On Chulak when he’d destroyed the casket full of larval Goa’uld, on Earth when he’d convinced a mountain full of strangers to help him get a warning back to his own world – Daniel might not ever be as skilled with a gun as Jack or Teal’c, but then Jack would never be able to translate twenty-three different languages, either. They each brought their own skills to the team, but those skills weren’t mutually exclusive. There had been a time when Jack hadn’t been able to read the language of the Ancients. Things changed.

Jack had known Daniel would stand with him in battle, had become so confident in his friend’s ability to fight that he hadn’t even hesitated when telling Daniel to watch all their backs on Apophis’ ship. The fact that Daniel had almost been killed in the attempt had overshadowed something else – Daniel hadn’t let him down. By the time Jack had answered that panicked cry of his name and found Daniel bleeding in the corridor Daniel had already killed all the Jaffa, keeping his team safe long enough for them to get to the other ship.

In fact, in the early years Daniel had proved himself to such an extent that Jack had soon stopped watching out for him, stopped singling him out for special protection. By the time they were hunting down the rogue NID agents using the second Gate, it had seemed perfectly acceptable for the whole of SG-1 to join the hunt, even though none of Daniel’s linguistic abilities or ancient knowledge could possibly be of any use in the search. There was no reason for Daniel to be there, and yet Jack had trusted him to back up the others without hesitation.

Over his years with SG-1, Daniel had become much more than just a scientist. And while Jack had noticed the difference, and adjusted his own actions accordingly, he’d never really accepted it, never really stopped to analyse what it meant to their friendship.

Daniel had defied the initial category Jack had put him into, had made it that much harder for Jack to anticipate what he was going to do. More often than not, Jack got it wrong. Their recent mission to rescue Chaka was a case in point. When faced with the prospect of shooting their way out of the barn, of risking the lives of the innocent – well, as innocent as anyone on that planet had been – women and children in the village, Jack had expected Daniel to protest, to insist that there had to be an alternative.

It’s what the scientist in Doctor Jackson would have done, gone out of his way to find a solution that didn’t involve gunfire and bloodshed.

The quiet, resigned ‘for once I’m not asking us to’ he’d received instead had surprised him more than he’d wanted to admit at the time. He should have realised then just how different Daniel had become. Instead he’d written it off as the pain talking, refusing to admit that it might be a sign of something more serious.

Deep down Jack missed the fire, the passion with which Daniel used to explain some ancient civilisation, speaking faster than Jack could ever comprehend. This quiet, subdued Daniel that had been surfacing more and more over the past few months might be more in line with the soldier that he’d wished Daniel could become back at the beginning, but it was so far removed from the Daniel he remembered that Jack had begun to regret the wish.

They’d grown apart, he knew, lost whatever connection they’d formed during those first few months as SG-1, and Jack knew that the reason he’d not seen the changes in Daniel was mainly because he’d stopped looking.

Daniel’s ability to shoot straight, run fast and follow orders had certainly made Jack’s job easier, and Jack had refused to wonder what might have been causing this dramatic change of heart, subconsciously choosing instead to accept what he was given at face value. In doing so he’d allowed their friendship to drift, beginning to treat Daniel as just another soldier, another work colleague like Ferretti or a dozen other soldiers he passed the time of day with on the base. The Daniel he’d formed such a solid friendship with those years before no longer existed, but he’d refused to see the changes, refused to acknowledge just how different things had become. Maybe it had taken the time apart, those few months when it seemed like Jack hadn’t seen Daniel from one week to the next, to really force him to see exactly how Daniel had changed. 

In an instant, four shots had shattered his blinkered vision, and Jack was left wondering how to put things right – if he even could after so long. And it had been much, much too long since Jack could honestly say that their friendship was solid. As Jack had truly begun to see Daniel as an equal, as someone who no longer needed his protection, as a ‘soldier’ in his own right, he’d begun to treat Daniel with the same rules he treated Ferretti, and the rest of the soldiers in the SGC. Somewhere along the way, as Jack got used to Daniel’s newfound abilities, he’d forgotten that Daniel was his friend first and foremost, and a soldier second. As such he’d become less demonstrative, seeing Daniel as a soldier who should, and would cope with whatever was thrown at them. 

Maybe that was why he’d reacted so badly on Euronda, when Daniel had suddenly jumped back into scientist mode, questioning the war and its origins in a way that none of the soldiers did. The primary mission of any soldier was to find technology, to arm and protect themselves. By the time they stepped through the gate onto Eurondan soil, it had been so long since Daniel had questioned their military objectives that Jack had overreacted, and unintentionally helped to drive what may well have been the final nail into the coffin of their friendship.

Things had been wrong before that, yes, but Jack couldn’t think of a single time since that mission when Daniel had reached out to him, when they’d just… talked.

That was what Jack missed the most. Daniel had been his closest friend, the one who had pulled him back into the world after Charlie died, and Jack had needed that friendship as much as Daniel had after they’d first lost Sha’re. He still did, but the job had come between them somehow, and Jack wasn’t sure he knew how to put things right. 

Shifting uncomfortably, perched on an old oil drum, Jack noticed the recruits beginning to move back to the warehouse, and realised with a start that his twenty minutes was almost up.

Damn.

Hauling himself to his feet, Jack winced slightly as his knees protested the movement. God, he felt old. 

 

****

 

Walking up behind Daniel, Jack went to throw an arm round his friends shoulder. Daniel flinched slightly, stiffening and, hopes fading, Jack turned the gesture into a brief, awkward pat on the back. Sweet. Even Daniel’s body language was screaming at how difficult this was going to be.

“Looks like we can cancel those target practice sessions, huh, Danny?”

Danny. Danny-boy. Spacemonkey. There had been a time that Jack would throw those little pet names around like air and no-one would bat an eyelid. Today, calling him Danny felt odd – didn’t roll off the tongue as easily as he remembered. And hell, he was *thinking* about it! More than once in the past Jack had used the nicknames without even realising it, his mind only registering what he’d said as Daniel rolled his eyes good-naturedly, or someone else in the room smothered a grin.

There was no good-natured grin today, and Daniel glanced up towards Jack for a brief second before looking away. Jack had to smother a sigh at Daniel’s expression, somewhere between surprise and uncertainty.

_Come on, Daniel, help me out here, will ya?_

Daniel stared down at the floor for a few seconds before finally raising his gaze again to meet Jack’s. As he did so, Jack was vaguely aware of Carter moving away discreetly, heading towards the recruits who were starting to gather. Jack ignored them, concentrating solely on Daniel, searching the man’s face almost desperately for some sign that it wasn’t too late, that they could still fix this mess hanging between them.

The uncertainty was still there, along with a guarded wariness that made Jack’s heart sink.

“It’s been five years, Jack,” Daniel said quietly, and Jack wasn’t sure whether Daniel was referring to his skills with a gun, or their friendship. “I might not be career military, but even I’ve managed to learn something.”

_Maybe too much, Daniel. Maybe too much._

In spite of his morose thoughts, Jack relaxed slightly. Daniel’s words could have sounded harsh, but the shy smile threatening to break through Daniel’s serious expression said more than the words themselves, and made Jack want to whoop with relief. He settled instead for a broad grin.

They still had a chance.

Daniel was still watching him, and Jack could almost see his mind working as Daniel adjusted to the conversation. Their words might have been simple, but Jack was well aware of the undercurrent running between them, and was certain that Daniel felt it too. Daniel straightened up, and Jack could see the tension that had been Daniel’s constant companion these last few months ease slightly. Taking his cue, Jack slipped an arm back round Daniel’s shoulder, pleased that this time there was no flinch, just another shy smile as Daniel glanced up at him.

“Ready to go scare some more recruits, Doctor Jackson?”

“I don’t know if my playing the villain was your idea, Jack,” Daniel began hesitantly, “but if I have to listen to one more Doctor Evil joke over this…”

Jack laughed. “Oh, by the way, Daniel. I’ve got a spare ticket to the hockey game tomorrow night. Wanna come?”

The surprised pleasure on Daniel’s face made Jack grin, but Daniel’s smile disappeared quickly, replaced with an earnest, serious look as Daniel nodded. Jack nodded back, well aware that Daniel knew exactly what he was asking, and it didn’t have much to do with hockey. Daniel was agreeing to try again, to try and turn the clock back somehow.

It wasn’t going to be easy, he knew that. Too much had happened for them to be able to just write it all off and go back to the way things were.

But they had to try.


End file.
